red bull

The team at North Street Labs really went all out with this Tic-Tack-Toe stomp box. At its most basic it’s a blinky version of the simple two-player game. But there’s always some added appeal when you make large manifestations of normally small items; the 10x Arduino is a good example of this.

The project is NSL’s qualifying entry for this year’s Red Bull Creation Contest (has it already been a year since the last contest?). A special Arduino shield was produced once again, this time it features hardware necessary to control LED strips… a lot of them. That led to the creation of this box, which houses a ton of strip sections inside to light the grid based on tapping one of the red buttons with your foot. We’d image the game would be seldom used at your hackerspace, but they take it to show off at the local children’s museum and it’s a huge hit with the kids!

Late last September, Hackaday along with other hackerspaces including North Street Labs, 1.21 Jigawatts, Maker Twins, made their way to the NYC Maker Faire via the Red Bull Creation contest. The objectives of the contest were simple: build a game in 72 hours, have people vote on it, and join the Red Bull crew in Queens for a carnival-like atmosphere.

When the Maker Faire was over, Red Bull had some leftover props from their Midway at Maker Faire setup, including a few illuminated carnival signs. Without any use for them, they graciously gave Hackaday, North Street, Maker Twins and the Jigawatts the signs to their respective rides.

Now that things have settled down and the rides have returned to their home base, the folks over at North Street decided to improve their sign. At Maker Fair, these signs were illuminated by 50 incandescent bulbs, all wired on the same circuit. [Steve] over at North Street had the awesome idea of adding a persistence of vision aspect to the sign, so work began on wiring every fourth bulb in series.

To drive the light circuits, North Street repurposed the Arduino Relay shield originally used for the lights on the Centrifury, their competitive centrifuge and spinning hell of a game. In the video after the break, you can see the addition of POV lights really brings out the carnival atmosphere. A literally brilliant build, and a wonderful addition to the scariest game ever made.

In case you missed MB Labs’ demo of their project for the Red Bull creation contest last Sunday night, the page describing their build is up and is giving us at Hackaday a run for our money.

The Morphield consists of a piece of fabric stretched over a frame, itself hiding 135 solenoid-controlled balloons that move the field instead of playing soccer by moving the ball. These solenoids are controlled by a wiimote, allowing players to manipulate the terrain of the field and hopefully guide a ball into their opponent’s goal.

In addition to creating a worthy competitor to Hackaday’s own Minotaur’s Revenge, MB Labs also released an Arduino library and an API so the Morphield can be repurposed for other games, kinetic art installations, and – we’re hoping – a gigantic, soft version of a pin art display.

When the guts of MB Labs’ Morphield was revealed on the Red Bull Creation live stream, the only words that showed up in the chat window were ‘wow,’ ‘holy crap,’ and ‘amazing.’ We’ve got to agree; the guys put together a really cool game that will also be over once the Creation contest is over.

North Street Labs really brought their ‘A’ game to the build finals for the Red Bull Creation contest. Behold the Centrifury, their spinning hell of a game. You can’t really make it out (because of the spinning) but the game consists of two bucket seats positioned opposite of each other on a merry-go-round type deck. Each player has a button in front of them which must be held down for the rig to start spinning. When you can’t take it any more just release the button and the spinning will stop. But you’ll also have lost the game. Whomever can hold out longer wins.

It’s not surprising to see such a well-polished build. After all, this is the same group that built the violently vibrating game of Simon. This time around most of the work came in the form of engineering and welding. First they had to make sure the design could take the forces this things puts out, then they had to build it. And all within the 72-hour time limit. We’re not sure what’s harder, winning the game or trying not to smile while watching the video after the break.

We built two giant marble mazes. The maze itself is all mechanical, with a 2 person team controlling x and y axis. The fun happens though when you hit buttons to activate magnets and traps on the other team’s table.

Check out the Live Stream. Nothing is happening at the moment, but a couple of dedicated Hackaday fans are checking out an empty couch. We have a very strange readership.

[sonofabit] recorded the last 8 hours of the build at 1fps and made a time lapse video. It’s an hour long, and we thank [sonofabit]’s CPU for all its hard work. You can also check out the video after the break.

First off we must applaud the Eugene Makers for their prolific documentation of the project. There’s a day or two worth of fun reading/watching on that page so make sure you save the bookmark (and learn from their example!). Inside the mysterious waist-high enclosure there’s a hopper to store the energy-drink reservoir. As a can is dispensed its barcode is scanned to ensure this is an approved beverage. At this point the can is elevated through an iris in the case of the enclosure, al0ng with a theatrically timed puff of fog. The parts of the iris were printed on paper and used to cut out wooden pieces using a scroll saw. The fog blast is from an inverted duster can with a 3d printed nozzle that helps make it Bullduino controlled.

When done with your beverage the can can be placed back in the opening, where it is again scanned before going into the recycling bin. But as you can see in the clip after the break, trying to sneak a soda can into the machine will launch the empty right back at you!

We are quite happy to announce that we’ve made it into the next round of the Red Bull Creation contest. Our entry was fairly simple, but just amusing enough to get us by. I’m assembling my team here in springfield missouri at Squidfoo as well as setting up some full time Skype sessions with writers elsewhere.

We currently have no idea what the topic will be, but we do know that we will have 72 hours to complete it, starting the 19th. Red Bull will be filming the entire process so you can watch as we build. We are not a well trained team and we are all very strongly opinionated. We’ll be lucky if we complete anything in that time!